NEW YORK: For the sixth consecutive year, New York Life Insurance Company's Asian-Indian marketing unit unveiled its 'Bharat Yatra' documentary that captures the unique experiences of a group of Indian American students on a trip to India.Fifteen students from across the United States, all of who are winners of an essay competition conducted by New York Life, were taken to two-week trip to Maharashtra, a western state in India where they had the opportunity to see India grassroots up.

The trip, as were all of the previous trips where students who had similarly won their way to India through the essay competition, exposes them to challenges and issues India is encountering while pursuing the path of rapid development and at the same time striving to maintain a social balance.At a special event hosted by the Asian India Marketing Unit of the insurance giant, on Oct 2 at the New York Life Building in Manhattan, the documentary was unveiled amidst several of the company vice presidents, the Indian American media and the winning students who had undertaken the trip along with their parents.

The festive-style occasion had several of the students narrate their experiences from the trip, which took them to the world famous Ajanta-Ellora caves, the Shirdi Saibaba shrine, Kolhapur, Lonavla and of course Mumbai - giving them a varied experience of India's ancient heritage, its religions, culture, natural beauty and the modernity of its urban cities.In his introductory remarks, Ashwin K Verma said New York Life is one of the most preferred insurance service providers in the South Asian American market.

"Today, 33 percent of life insurance policies held among South Asian Americans are of NY Life. We have a 45 percent household penetration in this community, where at least half of all South Asian households that have life insurance have at least one NY Life policy.

"The 15 students who made the trip this year include: Akshay Verma, a freshman at the University of California Santa Cruz; Amar Singh who is completing his Bachelor of Commerce at McGill University in Montreal, Canada; Arjit Paul, a student of Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee; Kedar Shah, a graduate of the Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Sciences at the University of California, Berkeley; Neel Vahil, a sophomore at Emory University in Atlanta; Meha Sheth, a sophomore at Fairleigh Dickinson University in Madison, New Jersey; Neha Limaye, a sophomore at Duke University in North Carolina; Niketa Kumar, a junior at the George Washington University in Washington DC; Siddhartha Ghosh, a Bachelor of Science working at Lockheed Martin Corporation in New York; Sumit Verma a graduate of Santa Clara University; Trina Basu, a junior at the University of Illinois at Chicago; Urna Chakraborty, a junior at Boston University; Vikas Anand, a sophomore at Columbia University in New York City; Vishal Shah, an FX Derivatives trader for the Royal Bank of Scotland; and Visish Srinivasan, a senior at Drexel University.

The essays on the topic 'India's Development: Challenges it may face in the economy, education, culture, environment and other important aspects of its daily life' were judged by a panel of three judges comprising Frederick J. Sievert, Parmatma Saran and Dr Neena Malhotra of the Indian Consulate.